My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)
My Little Pony: The Movie is a 2017 animated family musical fantasy film based on the popular television series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic created by Lauren Faust, which was developed as part of the 2010 re-launch of the My Little Pony franchise by Hasbro. The film was produced by Allspark Pictures and DHX Media, using traditional animation created with Toon Boom Harmony. It premiered in New York City on September 24, 2017, and was released on October 6, 2017 in the United States and Canada through Lionsgate. Plot The ponies of Equestria prepare for their first Friendship Festival, which is overseen by Princess Twilight Sparkle in Canterlot. The festivities are interrupted by an invasion of monstrous storm creatures commanded by the broken-horned unicorn Tempest Shadow, who uses magical obsidian orbs to petrify Twilight's fellow princesses; Princess Celestia unsuccessfully urges Princess Luna to seek help south of Equestria, uttering "the queen of the hippo" before being interrupted. Twilight flees the city alongside her five pony friends – Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy – and her assistant dragon, Spike, setting out with them in search of the aforementioned "hippos". Tempest is contacted by her superior, the Storm King, who reminds her to gather all of Equestria's princesses in order for him to activate his mystical staff with their magic, promising to restore her horn in exchange. In the desert city of Klugetown, a feline con artist named Capper falsely offers to guide the seven friends to the hippos, secretly intending to sell the ponies to settle a debt to a local criminal. However, he develops a genuine friendship with them after Rarity generously mends his coat. Twilight discovers an atlas in Capper's manor that reveals the "hippos" to be hippogriffs, exposing Capper's treachery to the others. When Tempest arrives in pursuit of Twilight, the seven evade her aboard a delivery airship. Tempest interrogates Capper over Twilight's whereabouts, but he deliberately misdirects Tempest to atone for deceiving the seven. The airship's birdlike crew along with their Captain Celaeno reluctantly allow the seven passage during a lunch break, revealing themselves to be former pirates that have been forced into the Storm King's service. Rainbow Dash persuades the pirates to defy orders and take the seven to the hippogriffs' kingdom on Mount Aris, performing a Sonic Rainboom that inadvertently gives their location away to Tempest. Disgruntled by her friends' carelessness, Twilight single-handedly engineers her group's escape in a makeshift hot air balloon, leaving Tempest to destroy the ship with the pirates and Capper on board. The seven reach Mount Aris to find the kingdom deserted. Following a singing voice to a fountain, they are pulled down a whirlpool where the singer, the seapony Princess Skystar, gives them air bubble helmets and takes them to her underwater home of Seaquestria. Skystar identifies her kind as the hippogriffs, transformed by a magic pearl used by her mother, Queen Novo, to hide from the Storm King's assault; Novo demonstrates by turning the ponies into seaponies and Spike into a pufferfish. When Novo denies them the pearl to use against the Storm King, Twilight desperately attempts to steal the pearl while letting her oblivious friends socialize with the seaponies as a distraction. Pinkie Pie nearly changes Novo's mind until Twilight triggers an alarm, prompting the outraged queen to banish the entire group to the surface. After arguing with her friends over her actions, an ashamed Twilight is abducted by Tempest and brought before the Storm King in Canterlot to have her magic absorbed; Tempest gains Twilight's sympathy upon divulging how her own friends feared and shunned her for her dangerously unstable magic after she lost her horn in a monster attack as a filly. Meanwhile, Twilight's friends reunite with Capper, the pirates, and the hippogriff Skystar to infiltrate Canterlot and rescue her. Seeing the group repel his army, the Storm King uses his empowered staff to unleash a tornado on the city, betraying Tempest as well. Twilight saves Tempest from the tornado and reconciles with her friends, working together with them to take the staff from the Storm King and disperse the storm. The Storm King hurls an obsidian orb at the seven in a final effort to reclaim the staff, but Tempest jumps in his way, petrifying them both. The Storm King's body falls and shatters, while Twilight and her friends use the staff's magic to revive Tempest and the other petrified ponies, which in turn restores Canterlot from the damage it sustained from the Storm King's occupation. The Friendship Festival resumes, and the ponies celebrate with all of the allies they have made on their adventure. Tempest is convinced by Twilight to join them by using controlled sparks from her still broken horn to provide a fireworks display, happily accepting the friendship of Twilight and company. Why It Rocks # Gorgeous animation, which was made with Toon Boom Harmony instead of Adobe Flash like in the television series and Equestria Girls movies. #* It was also great to revive traditional-animation movies as it was overshadowed by computer animation and never used for many years. # Amazing voice acting. # Likable and entertaining characters. # It does very well to follow directly as it's from the same people who made Friendship is Magic. # Great heartwarming or tear-jerking moments like Tempest losing her horn as a filly. # Decent soundtrack and very good musical numbers, especially the Australian singer Sia's "Rainbow". # Funny scenes, like a hilarious scene with Fluttershy during the climax. Spike and Rainbow Dash have some of the most entertaining scenes in the film. # The score of Daniel Ingram is really good in this film. # It has better storytelling than in other Hasbro films like any Barbie film or even in any Transformers film. # The climax is sort of creative and fun with the help of the Mane 6, Spike and the new characters. # It comes with a cute short of the web series Hanazuki. # The world of Seaquestria is amazing and has cute Sea Ponies. # This film has the darkest tone, thanks for the PG rating. Bad Qualities # The Mane Six's portrayal in this film is like all of their character development was sucked out as they seem to be more align with their portrayal of season 1 in Friendship is Magic, causing a few of them to act out of character in a few scenes that goes against how they've been built up as characters for seven whole seasons. #* The scenes where Twilight gets her friends to distract the sea ponies so she can steal the sea ponies pearl, blows up in her friends' faces while telling Pinkie Pie that she'd be better off without having her as a friend is the main highlight of this. # There are some things in the film that don't follow the TV series. Like Canterlot's description as it's portrayed as some stereotypical happy pony paradise instead of a city that had well descriptive socioeconomics, and it featured a lot of upper class culture. # Poor computer animation for Captain Celaeno‘s ship. # The Storm King has little screen-time as he only appears in conversation with Tempest and at the climax. # Some of the characters like Grubber, Tempest sidekick, are pointless. # The story suffers from being cliché and predictable. # The characters lack chemistry. # False Advertising: By looking up the back cover of a DVD or Blu-Ray case, you may think that the film that will take place in Ponyville, but it's actually in the plot that takes place in Canterlot. # Starlight Glimmer and other main and supporting characters in the show don't appear in the film at all, nor are they mentioned. Reception Box office As of December 3, 2017, My Little Pony: The Movie has grossed $21.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $30.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $52.3 million. Critical response The film was decently receives mixed reviews from critics, but it was utterly liked by My Little Pony fans because they been promised for a feature film that makes it more entertaining for the fans of MLP: FIM. And as a of January 2018, It holds a 5.2/10 rating on Rotten Tomatoes and according to the Critics Consensus it saids here "Charming and sweet, My Little Pony: The Movie will please its dedicated fanbase, even if it's unlikely to encourage non-devotees to gallop along for the ride." IMDB holds a film a 6.1/10 rating. Trivia * The movie have references based on Hasbro properties like sound effect from Transformers and character saying like Easy Bake Oven and Hungry Hungry Hippos. * After the film released where it was changed in Season 8 from the show like updated Celestia and Luna throne, added the location Mount Aris and name mention like Tempest and Storm King. External Links * My Little Pony: The Movie at the Internet Movie Database * My Little Pony: The Movie on Rotten Tomatoes Category:2010s films Category:Animation films Category:My Little Pony films Category:Lionsgate films Category:Decent Films Category:Musical films Category:Fantasy films Category:Based on television Category:Family films Category:All star cast films Category:Animal films Category:Based on merchandise Category:American films Category:Hasbro Films Category:Great Films with Bad Rotten Tomatoes Scores Category:Children movies